A Friendly Interrogation
by angie1379
Summary: A night or two after "Final Frontier," the gang meets for a drink, and everyone wants the details on Castle and Beckett's relationship.


A Friendly Interrogation

A night or two after "Final Frontier," the gang meets for a drink, and everyone wants details.

* * *

The Old Haunt hadn't changed a bit since the last time Kate was there, months ago. She knew Castle stopped in occasionally to go over the books and do his duty as owner, but for the most part, he let his general manager run the place — and paid him handsomely for doing a good job.

Kate glanced around and thought back to the last time she sat at one of the worn booths. It had to have been last March, or maybe even February. It was sometime after the CIA case, she remembered. Not long after that was when things began to change – or more accurately, began to fall apart, after the bombing case. And by the time they started putting the pieces back together, struggling with tentative explanations and renewed promises of "soon," the past had returned once again, dragging Kate back into her own private hell where no one and nothing could reach her. She was still amazed how the worst days of her life ended with her diving headlong into a relationship she had been convinced she still wasn't ready for – and it had proven even more incredible than she'd ever dared imagine.

So yeah, it had been a while since she'd been to the venerable pub. In the months since their relationship had become … more personal, they had avoided the usual spots for fear of being outed. But since it appeared everyone except Gates finally knew the truth, they agreed it was time to revive the tradition of a celebratory drink after a case.

Feeling Castle step up behind her, Kate reached back, clasped his hand, and led him to the table in the back where their friends were waiting. The tabletop was littered with glasses and bottles, fries baskets, and assorted munchies.

"About time," Lanie said without preamble.

"Sorry. Gates decided seven p.m. on a Friday would be a good time to review closure rates and overtime, given the resources used on the Super-Nova Con case," Kate said by way of explaining their late arrival.

"Uh-huh," Esposito added skeptically, "you sure you weren't just clocking some unofficial OT in the back room." He shot a pointed look between Castle and Beckett, the innuendo anything but subtle, and was rewarded when Kate chucked a french fry his way.

But the can of worms had been opened, and before Kate could take even one sip of her Yeungling, she found herself on the receiving end of three matching, expectant stares.

"What?" she asked, not sure what she just walked into. Glancing at Castle, she got no help from his contentedly bland expression.

"Come on, Kate. Don't you think it's about time you 'fessed up on some details?" Lanie prompted.

For a second, Kate looked momentarily horrorstruck, not at all interested in being the evening's entertainment. But looking at their comically curious expressions, she decided to be a good sport and let them have their laugh. Having just spent an hour going over the details of the sci-fi-centered case, it never crossed her mind their curiosity involved anything other than the college fangirl days she'd done her, apparently futile, best to keep secret.

"Alright, fine," she said defiantly, prepared to bare all. "I was away at Stanford, and I was an awkward geek. I liked cheesy tv shows, and I finally met some friends who didn't laugh at me about it. We all got to geek-out together, and they completely got why I loved the show so much. So yes, getting to see the Nebula-9 bridge and meet Gabriel Winters brought out my latent, inner fangirl."

After she finished her spiel and braced herself for the barrage of ribbing and laughter, she was surprised to be met with complete silence. Even Castle was giving her an odd smirk, like he knew something she didn't. But it was Lanie who finally spoke up.

"Girl, you really are clueless sometimes." After a few beats in which Kate just stared at her, she continued, "We don't care of you watched Nebula-9 everyday through college or even dressed up in a Lieutenant Casey uniform."

Kate's face turned instantly scarlet, and she had no idea if Lanie was being literal or hypothetical. Either way, Castle didn't help with his clarification.

"Lieutenant Chloe," he corrected with feigned innocence, blithely meeting Kate's mortified glare, "Not Casey."

"Anyway," Kate said between gritted teeth, deliberately moving on before anymore secrets could be revealed, "then what's this inquisition about?"

"You ..." Lanie explained.

"And him," Ryan added smoothly.

Understanding dawned on Kate even as Lanie took the lead once again. "We get that you two wanted to keep things quiet at first, but the cat's been out of the bag for a few weeks, and yet not one of us has any clue what finally happened."

Kate had the good grace to look guilty, knowing her friends were probably entitled to more info than they'd gotten. They'd all known about the change in her and Castle's relationship at least since Jerry Tyson tried to frame Castle for murder, but none of them knew how or when that change had happened.

Again, Kate looked to her partner, and this time he offered more than a smile. "So," he asked the assembled group, "what would you like to know?"

Ryan didn't waste any time. "For starters, when did this happen?" he asked, wagging his finger between the two of them.

Lanie and Esposito nodded in unison, signaling their consent to Ryan inquiry.

Castle nodded to Kate, indicating he was okay with however much she chose to reveal. Kate took a deep breath and commenced to filling them in.

"It happened back in May, after we tracked down Maddox, and I resigned." No one seemed surprised at the timing, so she continued, "We had been ..." she paused and searched for the right words, "getting closer. We made plans to spend some time together. But then Orlando Costas was killed and Maddox was back, and as usual, I lost some perspective on what was really important."

Sounds from the rest of the bar filtered back to them, but for a few minutes, the silence at their table was absolute.

"You thought I was Castle," Ryan said, remembering. "When we pulled you up from that roof, you were calling for him."

Kate nodded. "Yeah, that whole ordeal sort of helped me make up my mind," she said wryly, the gravity of what it had taken for her to step up still not lost on her after nearly five months.

Then she turned toward Esposito when he spoke up. "But you weren't even talking that day. You said he was off the team."

"Yeah, well ..." How could she explain what had driven her to his door after her second brush with death at Maddox's hands? They had barely talked about it themselves.

Thankfully, Castle bailed her out with just the right mix of truth and humor to lighten the mood. "When a woman like Beckett shows up on your doorstep, kisses you, and says she's sorry, you don't ask too many questions — you just thank the universe."

Kate met his eyes with a silent "thank you" for the concise, heartfelt explanation.

"Then why all the sneaking around?" Lanie inquired. "We get the risk of Gates finding out, but girl, you didn't even tell _me_**.**"

For a second, Kate saw that for all her bravado, Lanie felt hurt at being lied to, and Kate felt the regret of keeping something so special from her friend. "I'm sorry, Lanie. It was just all so new, and we wanted some time to get used to things after four years."

"Yeah, I get that," she admitted, pointedly not looking toward Esposito and reminding everyone of their secret bubble almost two years earlier. "But, it's good, right? This relationship, I mean."

Kate and Castle glanced at each other, their hands drifting together like magnets, and their answer was as much to themselves as to Lanie.

"Yeah, it's good," Kate confirmed, as Castle added, "Really good," with a mischievous glint in his eye that left Kate blushing to the roots of her hair while the other three rolled their eyes.

When the laughter died down, Castle asked, "So, turnabout is fair play, right?" At their confused looks, he elaborated, "Now we get a few questions."

"What kind of questions?" asked Esposito, ever the skeptic.

"I'm just curious how you all found out. We thought we were pretty careful."

Lanie gave a snort of laughter, nearly spewing her tequila sunrise across the table. "I've seen billboards in Times Square more inconspicuous than you two."

"You knew?" Kate blurted incredulously. "You knew before I told you?"

"Honey, I knew the second you came back from suspension."

"How?"

"I may not be a detective, but I can add up pieces. In a matter of two days, you were nearly thrown off a roof, resigned from the force, found the man who killed your mom _and_ faced him down, and yet I don't get one phone call to help you hash it all out over a bottle of tequila afterward. I knew you had to be decompressing with someone, and it definitely wasn't me."

"How'd you know it was me?" Castle asked.

Lanie narrowed her eyes and commence to school him on the superiority of her deductive reasoning skills. "Because when I called her out on having sex, you played along and didn't act like I'd hit you in the gut with a sledgehammer, which is exactly what you would have done if you'd just found out she was sleeping with anyone else."

"Touché," he muttered, as Ryan and Esposito suddenly found the contents of their beer bottles absolutely fascinating at the actual mention of their team leader's sex life.

"Okay, that's enough analysis of that topic," Kate decided, her privacy threshold long crossed. "We can finish that discussion later," she said to the unapologetic ME.

Then she turned her attention to Ryan, who was still avoiding her eyes. "You figured it out when we were in the Hamptons. Aaron Lerner spilled the beans, didn't he?"

Ryan nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, when he mentioned Castle brought his 'girlfriend' to an interrogation, it was like all the pieces fell into place — your weekend away," he said to Kate, "your trip to write," he said to Castle. "And who would spend a romantic weekend investigating a murder except you two?"

Everybody chuckled at that, before Kate turned toward Esposito. "Okay, Javi, what tipped you off?"

"Officially? Ryan told me during the Tyson case. Figured it would be good for me to know there was more at stake than I knew. "Unofficially?" He paused for dramatic emphasis before confessing, "Yeah, I was clueless. Looking back, the signs were definitely there, but come on, the signs were there since you two met, so how was I supposed to know something changed?"

Knowing chuckles accompanied his rhetorical question, as no one could argue that Castle and Beckett's behavior had always been full of mixed meanings.

"All I can say is, it's about damn time," Lanie concluded.

"Tell me about it," Castle muttered, then winced when Kate's heel connected with his shin. But when he looked over at her, she was smiling, and it was like the whole room dissolved around them.

The brief reverie was broken when Ryan picked up his bottle of Guinness and tipped it toward the couple. "I'd like to make a toast, because ... well, because I'm Irish and that's what we do. So, to Castle and Beckett, writer and muse, colleagues, friends, and now partners in life and love. Saliente."

Glasses and bottles were raised around the table, as in front of their closets friends, the two being toasted leaned in and shared a kiss that spoke clearly of the deepened bond between them. It was the most overt demonstration of their relationship they'd yet made, and Kate especially, was surprised by how good it felt to no longer have to hide their relationship. When she finally managed to unlock her eyes from Castle, she glanced around the table only to find the rest of the group staring at them with unconcealed amusement.

"Shut up," she said indignantly, only to be rewarded with more snickers. But it was obvious the teasing was only a front for the genuine happiness everyone felt on behalf of the duo.

To lighten the mood, and in deference to her friend's privacy, Lanie decided it was time to draw from a new well. But she wasn't done with Kate quite yet.

"So, now that that's settled, would you care to elaborate on this?"

Kate watched, almost in slow motion, as Lanie produced a copy of the 8x10 glossy of her with her Nebula-9 friends from college. Much to her chagrin, her friend's earlier comment about "Lieutenant Casey" was not a happy coincidence.

Not even bothering to ask how in the world Lanie had gotten ahold of it, Kate dropped her head to her hands and decided the earlier conversation about her sex life was less humiliating than what was to come.

Yep, she should have called it an early night and gone home. But it was too late for that now. So, mustering what little dignity she could, she sat up straight, looked around the table, and boldly asked, "So, what do you want to know?"

* * *

The End


End file.
